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Disjointed

Things have been going pretty darn well lately. I might feel a bit run down and flu-ish, but my mood has been stable.

Until this morning. I got shivved by an anxiety spike.

You see, I once engaged in the dieting paradigm. Once, after my child was born. My body made it abundantly clear that my metabolism wouldn’t stand for it, brought all the weight lost back in a matter of weeks plus some, and stayed that way for over a year (I got down to 127, and it spiked back up to 154). After a year, I randomly lost a stone, and my body has hovered around 140lbs since then. It’s a good and fine weight; it’s not the 120lbs I was when I got pregnant with my daughter, but it’s a healthy weight, and it doesn’t bother me. My only bodily concern is that people will mistake my adorable remnant of belly chub as pregnancy and try to touch me, because nausea means I can’t stand anyone to get near my stomach (and I don’t think pregnant ladies are public property, ripe for the touching either). Since then, I’ve discovered the Health at Every Size movement via the most fabulous Ragen Chastain, and find it to be a most reasonable and sane approach. After all, I should and do worship my body for doing all sorts of fabulous things for me, like breathing and moving and twirling around! After all, who really takes care of things they hate?

Now, my one social activity that I’ve found and meshed well with is Stitch ‘n Bitch. Unfortunately, almost everyone in my group is dieting. And because I’m one of the smallest people there, anything I try to share of my one diet experience goes in one ear and out the other. I say that my body lost weight on its own metabolism steam, and people assume I’m happier and healthier because I’m thinner. Um… body size has little to do with actual health or happiness, but as said — in one ear, and out the other. I shrug, sigh, and try to drown out he fact most of them are in that smug phase where they believe the weight they’ve lost will stay off, and flat-out refuse to recognize how screwed up their metabolisms are from repeated dieting attempts. It’s their choice, after all, and I can certainly respect that’s what they want to do. I won’t cheer them on for it, but I’ll try to at least be polite.

So this morning, another person fell into the clutches of Slimming World. I shrugged and sighed, until another member of our group suggested we should turn our Stitch ‘n Bitch group into a Slimming World club. It’s been a few hours now, and my heart still physically hurts from the massively severe anxiety spike that caused. Not only would that make it not possible for me to attend the *one* social thing that I have found and am happy to regularly attend, but that’s about as bad as say… randomly declaring it a prayer meeting ‘because most of us are Christian’. Dude, you can pray and worship if you want. You can diet if you want. Do.not.force.it.on.me. It’s not funny, it’s not clever, and man… seriously, did I mention that my heart still physically hurts a few hours on? Because it does, because deity forbid I refuse to let the media and governments tell me I should panic over an arbitrary number they change on a whim, just because. Correlation does not imply causation, and it would do us all very good to remember this.

Beyond that, I’m just trying to be mindful of my sleep. My little one starts full time school tomorrow morning, and while I don’t have to get up to take her to school, I don’t want to be holding up myself and my husband in getting to work. I’m not super-optimistic about my ability to rise earlier and not be horrendously physically ill from it (true story), but I’m trying to convince myself that it should be less dire because it’s still after sunrise. I’m also going to start taking my Seroquel an hour or two earlier and see if that helps me make the shift. Fingers crossed, right?

For now, I am going to go find a beverage, ’cause it’s sweltering here. I hope everyone is having a good one.

Also, if anyone does have a different opinion on this matter they wish to share, by all means — just keep it polite. It’s not going to change my mind though. 🙂

<3

[[radio edit]] I feel I should addendum that nobody is actually going to change our group to a dieting club. It was just one gal talking to another and, I presume, offering it as a polite jest. Doesn’t make it any less triggering though.

yeah, I guess my issues with it were different, not the grabbiness but the assumption that I was pregnant. there was a dress I stopped wearing because it got me those reactions too often – was pretty but clingy 🙁

I have problems with food. But that doesn’t mean I should foist my problems on other people. My sympathies for the Stitch ‘n Bitch club. I hope they don’t change it. It may be to much anxiety but it would be good if you could voice your opinion at least. Or point them to this blog (although I don’t always want everyone I know to read my blog.) Good luck!

When I saw the comment on Facebook, I responded and expressed that I didn’t think it was funny, a good idea, or that I appreciated that being even jokingly proposed for my one social outing. So my opinion has definitely been registered! 🙂

Ugh, I seriously hate how often things like that happen. No, I’m not happy at the size I am right now, and yes, I am obese. Thanks, everyone–I’ve noticed. I’m healthy, but I’m fairly certain this isn’t my body’s “happy” weight because I maintained an average weight for years and years and then gained a bunch of stress-eating weight not too long before I got pregnant with my son.

I have never lost that weight, and I’m pretty sure something is “off” chemically that’s preventing me from doing so. My eating habits aren’t particularly different from before the stress-weight or my pregnancy, so something else has obviously changed.

And yeah, I should deal with that (and finally made a doc appt to do so). But before I healthily maintained an average weight, I had an eating disorder and no, I do NOT want weight loss tips. Nor do I want to do Weight Watchers, Paleo or whatever the trendiest new diet is. Ugh.

Diet culture is fucking brutal and I’m sorry it caused you so much anxiety today.